scholarly journals Social Media and Fake News in Nigeria: A Speech Act Analysis of WhatsApp Messages on Coronavirus

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-66
Author(s):  
Godwin Ayigbo Owojecho Godwin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
World Health ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Space ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

The evolution of social media has opened a new vista in digital communication across the world, Nigeria inclusive. Since the confirmation of the index case of Coronavirus in Nigeria, a lot of news on the subject which are largely considered by the World Health Organization to be false, had gone viral on the social media space. This study essentially examines some of those messages on WhatsApp that were circulated across Nigeria.  Five WhatsApp messages collected between March – June, 2020 were analysed using the framework of Austin’s Speech Acts with insights from the Conversational Maxims of Grice’s Cooperative Principles. The main objective of this analysis is to unravel the communicative effects of language. Findings show that the writers of those WhatsApp messages carefully manipulate some linguistic features to make such messages perform some illocutionary acts as well as trigger some perlocutionary moves in the minds of the readers. This buttresses the fact that language is used to achieve both linguistic and non linguistic aims.

scholarly journals Social Media and COVID-19: a global study of digital crisis interaction among Gen Z and millennials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Volkmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
World Health ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Space ◽  
Continuous Interaction ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Health Experts

The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing that global big tech platforms and social media are core sites for continuous engagement with crisis content for young citizens. This study included twenty-four countries from all continents at the time of the heightened COVID-19 crisis, and our survey targeted 18-40 year olds, Millennials and Gen Zs – overall n = 23,483 respondents. Outcomes show that for young citizens across continents, crisis communication is not just about press briefings. Instead, crisis communication is continuous interaction and engagement across their multiple source environments. Young citizens navigate social media, national media, search sites and messaging apps, they engage with peer communities, science and health experts and – across all countries – substantially with the social media content of the World Health Organization (WHO). Overall, they create their own individual crisis narrative based on the sources they use and the insights they select. This report outlines these new crisis communication dimensions within a transnational social media space and offers numerous suggestions for incorporating social media in crisis response strategies.

scholarly journals The WHO Health Alert: Communicating a Global Pandemic with WhatsApp

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Josephine Walwema
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Access Information ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Local Agencies

Upon declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) orchestrated a global risk-communication outreach. The WHO’s objective was to persuade the public to upend and alter their lives so as to contain the disease and minimize its spread and infection. The WHO found a simple and efficient medium to communicate glocally through the social media application WhatsApp, through which individuals could access information without gatekeeping by governments and local agencies.

scholarly journals Impact Analysis of COVID 19 Response Measures on Social Media Postings

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farrukh Hasan Syed ◽  
Muhammad Sudais
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
World Health ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Response Measures ◽  
Global Concern ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Declared a pandemic in March 2020, SARS-COVID19 has become a health emergency of global concern. The World Health Organization has directed the countries all over the world to take measures to stop the spread of disease. There was a public outburst for policies like lockdown and a mixed review for Working from Home on social networking platforms. By analyzing this change, we can identify the sentiment of people about different policies. A lot of work has been done on sentiment analysis of Covid19 tweets. This is an in-depth impact analysis of COVID-19 response measures on sentiments of tweets. It can help us understand the social media trends revolving around COVID19. For achieving the goal, Google Mobility Report has been used for obtaining data about the mobility in different countries. A huge collection of tweets is extracted using Twitter API. Both datasets are used to analyze multiple trends over a period of more than a year. This article shows the change in social media sentiments with the evolving state of pandemic and the steps taken by authorities. Although, number of cases have more impact on Sentiments, the impact of changing mobility of residential and non-residential areas is also not negligible because average sentiments have seen significant up and down trends because of changing government policies.

The evolution of rumors on a closed platform during COVID-19 (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Wen-Yi Wang ◽  
Jo-Yu Lan ◽  
Ming-Hung Wang ◽  
Chihhao Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Instant Messaging ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical And Psychological Health ◽  
Health Organization

BACKGROUND In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic put the world in crisis on both physical and psychological health. Simultaneously, a myriad of unverified information flowed on social media and online outlets. The situation was so severe that the World Health Organization identified it an infodemic on February 2020. OBJECTIVE We want to study the propagation patterns and textual transformation of COVID-19 related rumors on a closed-platform. METHODS We obtained a dataset of 114 thousand suspicious text messages collected on Taiwan’s most popular instant messaging platform, LINE. We also proposed an algorithm that efficiently cluster text messages into groups, where each group contains text messages within limited difference in content. Each group then represents a rumor and elements in each group is a message about the rumor. RESULTS 114 thousand messages were separated into 937 groups with at least 10 elements. Of the 936 rumors, 44.5% (417) were related to COVID-19. By studying 3 popular false COVID-19 rumors, we identified that key authoritative figures, mostly medical personnel, were often quoted in the messages. Also, rumors resurfaced multiple times after being fact-checked, and the resurfacing pattern were influenced by major societal events and successful content alterations, such as changing whom to quote in a message. CONCLUSIONS To fight infodemic, it is crucial that we first understand why and how a rumor becomes popular. While social media gives rise to unprecedented number of unverified rumors, it also provides a unique opportunity for us to study rumor propagations and the interactions with society. Therefore, we must put more effort in the areas.

scholarly journals Practices suggested in social media for birth plans

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victória Prates Pasqualotto ◽  
Mariene Jaeger Riffel ◽  
Virgínia Leismann Moretto
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
World Health ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Means Of Transmission ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
E Mail

ABSTRACT Objective: To describe and analyze the practices suggested in social media for the elaboration of Birth Plans, available on Blogs/Sites and not included in the WHO recommendations. Method: Qualitative, exploratory, descriptive study with thematic analysis. A total of 41 e-mail addresses were selected for analysis among the 200 web addresses previously identified between March and July 2016. Three web addresses were in Portugal and the others in Brazil. Results: 48 practices not included in the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) were identified. Conclusion: Blogs/Websites, as means of transmission, circulation and production of knowledge, enable the horizontal expression of values, encourage women to plan the events considered important for their deliveries and put childbirth decisions on the hands of women, which has caused controversy in the discourse of humanization of childbirth.

scholarly journals How to Help Children and Adolescents with Austism SprectrumDisorder during Covid-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Respiratory Infections ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
World Health ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

The Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) are distinguished by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. Coronaviruses are an extremely common cause of colds and other upper respiratory infections. COVID-19, short for “coronavirus disease 2019”. The fast spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 has sparked alarm worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Most of the countries around the world are adopting social distancing to slow the spread of coronavirus. There are several possible impacts of this pandemic on the daily lives of individuals with ASD, such as worsening of dysfunctional behaviors and regression of skills already acquired in different domains of development due to the social isolation. The objective of this article is to provide guidance to parents, health and education professionals that live or work with ASD individuals during the social isolation, on how to manage interventions that can be executed in the home environment, like remote training in language and social communication skills, behavioral strategies and sensory integration activities

scholarly journals Knowledge, Attitude, and Perception of COVID-19 Pandemic in Enugu, Southeast Nigeria- The Initial Experience

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
E. K. Mgbe ◽  
C. G. Mgbe ◽  
S. N. Ezeofor ◽  
J. F. Etiki
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
World Health ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The World ◽  
Enugu State ◽  
Health Organization

Background: The world is experiencing a global corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic. As of 9th June 2020, over 7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and more than 400,000 deaths had been reported in more than 30 countries of the world according to World Health Organization. Aim: We aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and vulnerability perception of Enugu state residents during the coronavirus outbreak in order to facilitate better health care outcomes. Methodology: A prospective Web-based cross-sectional survey was designed for this study which was conducted in March 2020 among Enugu state residents. The obtained data were coded, validated, and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences SPSS software, version 24. Descriptive analysis was applied to calculate the frequencies and proportions and Chi-Square Test was also used. A preliminary phase was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the questionnaire before its use.  Results: The study showed that significant number (99.6%) of the respondents had heard about Covid-19 and the most stated source of knowledge was social media (57.6%), followed by Newspaper and television shows (50.2%) while the least was from General Practitioner (GP) (8.9%). There was over 75% agreement with, and practice, of all known covid precautionary measures and less than 35% responses for wrong claims and practices about covid -19. Conclusion: The overall knowledge, attitude, and perception are high in Enugu state population although few still has background combined superstitious believes. Social media and internet are the highest used facility for acquisition of knowledge and information in Enugu, Nigeria.

scholarly journals The “Obiettivo Antibiotico” Campaign on Prudent Use of Antibiotics in Sicily, Italy: The Pilot Phase

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Barchitta ◽  
Annalisa Quattrocchi ◽  
Andrea Maugeri ◽  
Maria Clara La Rosa ◽  
Claudia La Mastra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
General Public ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
World Health ◽  
Pilot Phase ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

The issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a focus of the World Health Organization, which proposes educational interventions targeting the public and healthcare professionals. Here, we present the first attempt at a regionwide multicomponent campaign in Sicily (Italy), called “Obiettivo Antibiotico”, which aims to raise the awareness of prudent use of antibiotics in the public and in healthcare professionals. The campaign was designed by an interdisciplinary academic team, and an interactive website was populated with different materials, including key messages, letters, slogans, posters, factsheets, leaflets, and videos. The campaign was launched in November 2018 and, as of 21 December 2018, the website had a total of 1159 unique visitors, of which 190 became champions by pledging to take simple actions to support the fight against AMR. Data from social media showed that the audience was between 18 and 54 years of age, with a high proportion of female participants (64%). Interestingly, the LinkedIn page received more than 1200 followers, and Facebook 685 followers. The number of actions taken (pledges) by the audience was 458, evenly divided between experts (53%) and the general public (47%). Additional efforts are needed to reach more people, thus future efforts should focus on further promotion within the Sicilian region to sustain the engagement with the campaign.

scholarly journals Possible consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of employees in travel agencies in Serbia

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Jelisaveta Vučković ◽  
Vesna Tsitsivas
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Prospective Studies ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
World Health ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
Travel Agencies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Health Organization

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 virus pandemic, which is still ongoing, and it is uncertain when it will end. Essentially, it is an epidemiological problem which has turned into economic, sociological, socio-political and psychological one. Based on the information available so far, it can be concluded that the tourism industry (and within it, especially the business operations of travel agencies and tour operators), both in the world and in Serbia, is one of the most affected, due to the pandemic. Freedom of movement is restricted and people's safety is endangered, which are the key preconditions for tourism mobility. The subject of analysis in this paper is an attempt to look at the psychological aspect of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, with special emphasis on its possible consequences on the mental health of the employees in travel agencies in Serbia. Meny experts think that it will undoubtedly adversely affect people's mental health, and prospective studies on this topic will follow in the future.

scholarly journals Anxiety disorder and consumption of social media in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 316-326
Author(s):  
Tarcisio Torres Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
World Health ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The City

Brazilian population spends a lot of time on social media. The average access from any device is 3 hours and 39 minutes (The Global, 2018). On the other hand, the country leads the numbers of anxiety disorder among the population. According to the World Health Organization, the incidence in the country is 9.3%, while the world average is 3.5%. This number is even higher in big cities, reaching 19.9% in the city of São Paulo (Horta, 2019). Possible causes are economic instability, social changes and violence (Horta, 2019). Add to that the political polarization in recent years and the intensive use of gadgets, private chat applications, such as Whatsapp, and social networks. In this work, we focus on the influence of social networks in the development of Brazilian anxiety. Our hypothesis is that the intensity of use reinforces the existence of other factors of anxiety increase (economy, violence, political division, etc.) through the sharing of news, besides adding others, such as self-display, performativity and the need of always being in evidence in social networks. As a method, we will work with content analysis (news and images) from the main social networking platforms used in Brazil.

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